The Florence Court of Appeal has ordered the Pisa University Hospital (AOUP) to pay a 47-year-old woman over €470,000 , an increase over the previous Pisa court ruling of €295,000. The ruling was based on a misdiagnosis of bowel cancer, which led the patient to undergo extensive, but unnecessary, cancer treatment. The news was published this morning by the newspaper Il Tirreno.
The story begins in 2006 when the woman went to Volterra Hospital (Pisa) for orthopedic surgery. Pre-hospital tests revealed an abnormal white blood cell count, and the operation was postponed with the results forwarded to the AOUP, which, after a bone marrow and intestinal biopsy, diagnosed indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Malt type, predominantly localized in the intestine. Thus, from January 2007 to May 2011, the patient underwent repeated treatments with chemotherapy, cortisone, and steroids, until a new biopsy performed in Genoa ruled out the presence of cancer.
After an unsuccessful out-of-court settlement , the 47-year-old sued AOUP before the civil court in Pisa . The health authority defended itself by claiming that the clinical picture was complex and difficult to diagnose, and asserted that the treatment administered was appropriate. However, the expert opinion ordered by the court determined that there was no need to treat the patient in that manner because the possibility of lymphoma was not supported by the results of tests and examinations, nor by the symptoms complained of by the patient.
Ultimately, the Court of Appeal's ruling established a permanent disability of 60%, not 40%, as decided by the first-instance court, and recognized the "personalization of damages" following the upheaval the forty-seven-year-old suffered not only psychologically but also in her daily life , given that she worked as an insurance agent and was forced to reduce her professional commitments and even saw her license revoked as she was deemed unfit to drive.
(Unioneonline)
